The story goes that it had been tried many times to establish its depth, without discovering this secret.

In this place I learned why there was a bad feeling against the Germans. Our meals were served in a room, containing benches and tables. The walls and ceiling were half-moon shaped; on either end of this, was a flat brick wall. This room, like many others, was built into the surrounding walls of the citadel. There was another door to the right of the one we used, which had an exit leading to a cemetery .

A couple of metres further to the right, the wall showed bullet marks. This was where the German Army executed Belgians during their occupation of Belgium. I never dared go near this area, but I looked at it with sad, regrettable feelings every day.

Another entrance led many steps down into various underground halls. The lowest one of them had a heavy barricaded exit door. Padlocked at all times, was a door leading to the most fascinating of all under ground halls. A rough built stairway led down into a big circular room. An all round ceiling made from bricks, had a cast iron air vent in its top centre through which I could see daylight

Of all things, I recognized this ceiling vent as the place above ground where I sometimes helped cleaning the garden. I never went near that spot again. Every time I entered this hall I quivered. This place gave me the horrors. I tell you why. In the centre of this dark and horrible place exactly underneath the air vent was a huge and deep well with a small brick wall around it. Looking down with fear, I could see a very wide, round and gruesome dark hole in the ground in front of my feet. Deep down a few old timber beams were visible.

The citadel was pretty high up above sea level; it must have been difficult to find any water from this height. The story goes that it had been tried many times to establish its depth, without discovering this secret. Throwing something down, I never heard the impact. Another story goes, that the Belgians threw things into this well and knew from where to pick them up at the bottom of it.

Let's talk about other things. For some unknown reason I was punished. I had no meals for one day, only water. A POW kitchen personal, obviously to me, hid something in the toilet. I quickly found a reason to go there and found a big box of biscuits for me. I gobbled up the lot, within seconds.

Things got a bit easier; I was trusted a bit more and various jobs came along. Looking after electrical problems was one of them. Opposite from the Yankee quarters was a multistorey building the same size. This was an American Army Hospital.

I quickly put my watch underneath the snow near my shoes, and this way I managed to keep it.

We all walked, under armed guards, to a room in an empty house. On the way I could see the enormously advanced outfits of the Yanks. All their Jeeps had rather small two way radios in them, like I had never seen before in a German vehicle. After a while they had collected lots more prisoners, and we were finally marched away from the front line to a more distant house.

There was a line-up for a body search. I could not believe my eyes; the Yanks snatched all the watches from the Jerrys. Seeing this, I quickly put my watch underneath the snow near my shoes, and this way I managed to keep it. We were taken by truck to a backyard garage in a small town. For the first time we had some food and drink. We were used to lots of soups; the American calories therefore did not fill our stomachs too well!

Via a castle on top of a hill, and after a severe interrogation in front of a large map hanging on the wall there, we arrived at a fenced camp. It may have been in Namur, Belgium. Again we were interrogated, and returned every time to a different quarter, so that nobody could hide something and come back to pick it up later. This time my Iron Cross, personal papers and photographs were removed. I never saw them again.

What happened to the small trees in the yard? All of the leaves were gone! I soon found out when it smelled bad around me that someone was smoking these leaves, rolled in any paper available. Then we came to our new destination for the next months; which was on top of a hill, the Citadel in Liege, Belgium. The POW camp was outside the Citadel, alongside its walls.

It was a disused concrete roofed target practice building with large openings in the roof. What a rotten place it was to be. It was so moist that I later had to build a primitive roof over the bed, which daily collected a bucket of condensed water. It was still war, and there was quite an anti-German feeling about. There were barbed wire fences and armed guards most of the time. I was a POW (Prisoner of war). A large white 'POW' was on every part of the black dyed outfits.

Every day a short walk took us into the Citadel itself. Groups were organized for all kinds of jobs. My ability at the start, seemed to be good enough for house cleaning. The place to clean was a huge two story building, which was the soldiers' quarters. I was to start in the morning sweeping very long 2 parallel floors, and in the afternoon mopping the same floors until supper. Then it was time to go back to the camp.

Food was scarce, so I took anything edible; even from the rubbish bins. I would eat anything. Some soldiers threw chocolates into the bins before I came to them. Doing this, they had to make sure that their mates did not see them. Here I had my first English lessons, talking to an Italian-American. He was my guard and used every chance to take me behind a door here he asked me all about Germany.